c. 2003 Religion News Service

Update: ACLU Sues Over Salt Lake City-Mormon Street Swap

(RNS) The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal suit Thursday (Aug. 7) seeking to overturn a land deal that gave the Mormon Church jurisdiction over a downtown Salt Lake City block.

The ACLU’s Utah chapter called the deal an assault on free speech, saying that city officials have failed to respect a federal ruling that Salt Lake City’s Main Street Plaza is a public forum.

City officials sold the block of Main Street to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1999 for $8.1 million. The church agreed to maintain public access to the block but asked that it be allowed to regulate behavior, restricting smoking, swearing, and “vulgar” dress or conduct.

The lawsuit asked that the block be returned to the city.

“The bottom line is that city residents and visitors alike will continue to pass through the Plaza and be `funneled’ to the city’s commercial and shopping district, but as they do so they will be subjected to the LDS Church’s point of view without the ability to respond with views of their own, at the risk of being jailed for `trespass,”’ the ACLU said in legal papers filed Thursday.

The lawsuit names Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and the city as defendants, charging that the city favored one religious group over another in a land deal that traded the plaza for two acres of church-owned land on which to build a new community center. The Mormon Church is not named as a defendant but is considering taking action, church attorney Allan Sullivan told the Associated Press.

“Government favoritism of one religion over all other religious messages cannot and should not be tolerated,” Mark Lopez, an ACLU attorney who has worked on both Utah cases, said in a statement. “When government shows a preference for one religion it send a chilling message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, and not full members of the community.”

Anderson denied the ACLU’s charges on Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

_ Alexandra Alter

Christian Coalition Divides Over `Biblical Principles’ Tax Plan

(RNS) The Christian Coalition of America has endorsed Alabama Gov. Bob Riley’s tax plan after the group’s state affiliate rejected it.

A conservative Republican and Southern Baptist, Riley proposed a $1.2 billion tax plan that would raise taxes for the wealthiest families and relieve the poor.

“Gov. Riley has said many time that there are three things he has found in reading the New Testament. We are to love God, love our neighbor and take care of the poorest of the poor,” Riley’s press secretary, David Azbell, told RNS.

Riley’s plan, which passed the state legislature in June and faces a Sept. 9 referendum, fills a $675 million shortfall in Alabama’s budget and would exempt families who make as little as $4,600 a year from paying taxes.

In a statement released Wednesday (Aug. 6), Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said she supports Riley’s tax plan.

But Alabama’s Christian Coalition, which opposes the plan, expressed irritation over Combs’ statement, calling it a “dramatic departure” from the organization’s core views.

“It is unprecedented to have a national organization change their position on a core issue, without notifying their board or leadership,” Alabama Christian Coalition chairman John Giles said in a statement. “We maintain that poor stewardship got us into this financial mess and the biblical principle of good stewardship will get us out.”

_ Alexandra Alter

Germany’s Cardinals Publicly Quarrel Over Ecumenical Event

(RNS) A verbal battle between three German Roman Catholic cardinals has broken out in the newspapers over a major ecumenical gathering that took place in Berlin earlier this year.

The event, the Ecumenical Kirchentag, brought 200,000 people to Berlin at the end of May for what many believe was the largest official gathering of Protestants and Roman Catholics, said Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.

At the time, senior Catholic officials called the event “a great step forward on the path of Christian ecumenism.”

But in recent weeks the event was criticized by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the conservative doctrinal watchdog at the Vatican, as “shallow.” And Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne said the Kirchentag had created “confusion” in Catholic parishes.

“I am afraid that the ecumenical Kirchentag was much ado about nothing,” Meisner said in a newspaper article. “Ecumenism lives from realism and courage … not nebulous hopes.”

But Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the head of German Catholics, in an article published in Catholic newspapers in early August stated “openly my disagreement for the sake of justice and truth” with Ratzinger and Meisner.

A major issue in the dispute _ and at the Berlin festival _ was the question of intercommunion between Protestants and Catholics. During the Berlin event, calls for easing of the Catholic ban on intercommunion were greeted with applause and, in some instances, standing ovations.

Lehmann, in defending the meeting, noted that Pope John Paul II had sent a message to the event in which the pontiff called it “a great ecumenical sign that what unites Christians in faith is stronger and more significant than what divides them.”

_ David E. Anderson

Knights of Columbus Criticize Democrats on Pryor Nomination

WASHINGTON (RNS) As Republicans brace themselves for a renewed filibuster of federal appeals court nominee Bill Pryor’s confirmation vote on the Senate floor, the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal lay organization of the Catholic Church, entered the fray, charging Democratic senators with anti-Catholic bias.

In a resolution passed during the group’s 121st meeting, the Knights accused some senators of trying to block votes on Catholic nominees to the federal bench because of the nominees’ “deeply held beliefs.”

The issue of Alabama Attorney General Pryor’s religious beliefs came up in a fractious debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week when Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked Pryor to state his religious affiliation.

Religious leaders quickly condemned the discussion of Pryor’s Catholic values as inappropriate.

“The Constitution is clear: There shall be no religious test for public service,” the Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a coalition of 65 faith groups dedicated to fighting intolerance, said at a July 29 press conference at the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Knights of Columbus condemned what they see as efforts to deny Catholics the opportunity to serve as judges. In a July 30 letter to Hatch, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, Supreme Knight Carl E. Anderson expressed concern that Catholics who adhere to the church’s ban on abortion and other public moral issues are being declared unfit for office.

Those concerns were echoed in the Knights’ resolution, which said: “Opposition to a highly qualified Catholic nominee because of a `deeply held belief’ consistent with Catholic teaching that abortion is always a grave evil … amounts to a de facto religious test for public office.”

Democratic senators, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have said conservatives’ charges of anti-Catholic bias amount to no more than a smear campaign.

_ Alexandra Alter

Films Barred From Mother Teresa Film Festival

(RNS) The run-up to the celebrations of Mother Teresa’s beatification has been beset by controversy as two disputed films were excluded from a Calcutta Mother Teresa film festival scheduled for November.

The film “Hell’s Angel,” which questions Mother Teresa’s acceptance of donations from former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and alleged swindler Charles Keating of Lincoln Savings and Loans, has been withdrawn after objections from the Missionaries of Charity, the Calcutta order Mother Teresa founded to care for the sick and poor.

Based on a book by journalist Christopher Hitchens, the BBC Channel Four Documentary accuses her of supporting the wealthy and powerful.

The religious order also objected to “In the Name of God’s Poor,” a film whose script Mother Teresa did not approve of that was based on her life.

Earlier this summer, the Missionaries of Charity patented Mother Teresa’s name to prevent organizations from exploiting her fame for commercial gain.

The request to ban the films was echoed by Bishop Salvador Lobo, the episcopal delegate on the team appointed to certify Mother Teresa’s sainthood. Lobo petitioned the Archdiocese of Calcutta to exclude the films.

“Both films have been controversial,” he wrote in a July 20 letter to Archbishop Lucas Sircar, the Hindustan Times of India reported. “Both depict Mother and her life in a very distorted way. They are far from the truth on Mother’s life, her work, and her belief. We from the church side cannot patronize these films and screen them.”

The festival, which was organized in celebration of Mother Teresa’s beatification at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome this fall, is scheduled to be held in downtown Calcutta, where the famous nun made her home.

Quote of the Day: Czech Writer and Former Religious Broadcaster Olga Kopecka-Valeska

(RNS) “People don’t know about God anymore. They don’t know what Christmas is about. They are lost in art galleries when they see paintings of Jesus Christ. One girl looked at a picture of the Crucifixion and asked, `Who did that to him?’ Her friend responded, `The Communists.”’

Olga Kopecka-Valeska on the apathy toward organized religion in the Czech Republic today. Kopecka-Valeska was quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

DEA END RNS